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Race Ratings:
We're making four changes to our race ratings this week, including two big moves on our Senate chart and two more on our House chart. All four favor Democrats.
• MA-Sen (Tossup to Lean D): I'm betting that Scott Brown is seriously regretting his agreement with Elizabeth Warren to bar most third-party spending on the race, because you know he's thinking that a $5 million blitz by Karl Rove sure would be tasty right about now. That's because the polling's simply been awful for the Republican senator since Labor Day, ever since the contest took a negative turn. If Brown could have stayed positive and had someone else do his dirty work, he might still be in this thing. But he's sullied his image, and Massachusetts' traditional blue instincts have reasserted themselves enough to power Warren to a distinct advantage.
• MO-Sen (Tossup to Lean D): We were among the biggest naysayers when Todd Akin's epic implosion rocked the Missouri Senate race—surely, we figured, once Akin successfully called the GOP establishment's bluff and refused to drop out, Crossroads and the NRSC would be right back in the game, and conservative hostility toward Dem Sen. Claire McCaskill would overpower any lingering disgust toward Akin. But even after they could no longer replace Akin on the ballot, Republicans stayed out, McCaskill woke her attack machine out of temporary stasis, and the contest has, remarkably, veered back into the blue column. Why the GOP didn't spend some of the millions they're wasting on Josh Mandel on Todd Akin instead, I'm not sure I can answer. But the fact is that they haven't, and Claire McCaskill may just be the luckiest senator in living memory.
• CA-36 (Lean R to Tossup): I admit it: I was very spooked by the revelations that Democrat Raul Ruiz had once read a letter in support of activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents in 1975. But despite some ugly headlines, I guess Peltier has about as much resonance these days as Sacco and Vanzetti (and if you have to Google that, well, I've just made my point). What's more, GOP Rep. Mary Bono Mack's attacks on Ruiz have inspired local Indian tribes (who almost never get involved in politics) to openly chastise her. (See CA-36 bullet below in our "House" section for more on this.) Indeed, Bono Mack's relationships with minority communities in her district seem to be a real problem for her, especially Latinos, whom she promised to reach out to ... after the election. That's a pretty serious issue, seeing as Hispanics make up 27 percent of the voting population of the redrawn 36th, about a quarter of which is brand-new to MBM. She's also never faced a serious race, and her rust has put this one into serious play for Team Blue.
• GA-12 (Lean R to Tossup): After the Republicans in control of redistricting screwed Rep. John Barrow something fierce, it was hard to imagine him hanging on: After all, his district see-sawed incredibly, going from 54-45 Obama to 56-44 McCain, one of the biggest swings in the country. But Barrow'd always been good (perhaps a little too good) at cultivating a very conservative profile—and he's canny enough for me to believe that he knew this day was coming. A recent Democratic internal had him up 48-45 over Republican Lee Anderson, and Anderson never responded. (A dusty Anderson internal from August only had him up 1, anyway.) While Dem third-party groups have been outspent $2.6 mil to $2 mil, Barrow's crushed Anderson in fundraising, $2.7 mil to just $800K, and Anderson had to spend most of his haul on winning the GOP nomination.
Senate:
• AZ-Sen: Democrat Rich Carmona has definitely cheesed off the GOP establishment with a new ad using footage of Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, actually endorsing him ... for Surgeon General in 2002. McCain and Kyl are pissed, calling the spot "deeply dishonest"—but does that mean they retract all the glowing praise they offered for him a decade ago? The Hotline's Dan Roem also reminds us that Virginia's Jim Webb did something similar in 2006, running an ad featuring Ronald Reagan praising his "gallantry as a Marine officer in Vietnam." Nancy Reagan complained, but Webb didn't budge. I have to suspect Carmona won't, either.
Meanwhile, Majority PAC and the LCV are going big in Arizona in the final week: They are spending $1.2 million on a new ad attacking GOP Rep. Jeff Flake over his support for uranium mining, which they say would threaten drinking water drawn from the Colorado River.
• CT-Sen: It looks like Republican Linda McMahon's self-funding is close to matching the obscene $50 million she shelled out in 2010. New fundraising reports indicate she's spent $42.6 million, almost all of which has come from her own pockets. When you step back and think about what these kinds of sums mean, I suppose it's not really a surprise she was able to make this race as close as she has.
• IN-Sen: On Friday morning, Republican Richard Mourdock coughed up a post-debate internal from McLaughlin & Associates showing his race with Joe Donnelly tied at 44 (while Libertarian Andrew Horning takes 6), which outlets like Politico are spinning as "show[ing] the race still competitive." And in a vacuum, you might even agree.
But folks, this is why we always check for trendlines, and in this case, the trends are bad for Mourdock. At the beginning of October, in another McLaughlin poll, Mourdock led 45-42 (with 4 for Horning). That's a three-point net gain for Donnelly, and while you might be inclined to dismiss such a small shift as just noise, in a race that's been as steady as this one (despite enormous outside spending), I'd much rather be the guy moving up three than down three. (P.S. Romney leads 55-41, versus 55-39 last time. Demographic breakdowns are provided at the link, if you want to dig into them.)
Later on Friday, though, the DSCC jumped into action with a dueling internal. They went into the field following Mourdock's rape comments, polling on Wednesday and Thursday nights via Anzalone Liszt, and they find Democrat Joe Donnelly now ahead 47-40. Mourdock's favorables are a terrible 33/48. Unfortunately, the memo doesn't include trendlines and this appears to be the first Anzalone poll to be released, so we can't see how big a bounce Donnelly got, but I can't imagine he was up anywhere near 7 before Mourdock's implosion. (David Jarman)
• MA-Sen (Rasmussen): Elizabeth Warren (D): 52 (49), Scott Brown (R-inc): 47 (47).
• ME-Sen: According to Maggie Haberman, the NRSC has been dark on the Maine airwaves since Oct. 16, and there's no indication that they plan to go back up there before election day. However, Crossroads GPS did just throw down a $330K buy on Oct. 23, and the DSCC followed suit with a $375K purchase on the 25th, so Angus King may not be out of the woods just yet. However, this feels a bit more like a "try to pin the Dems down" move rather than a "we really think we can win" move for the GOP.
• ND-Sen (Mellman for Heitkamp): Heidi Heitkamp (D): 48 (45), Rick Berg (R): 44 (42). Positive upward movement toward 50 percent for Heitkamp, and here's a nice tidbit from Mellman's polling memo: Among the 18 percent of respondents who have already voted, she's leading 58-34. Even though the sample size of that sub-group is quite small, Heitkamp's edge actually exceeds the margin of error.
• NM-Sen (PPP for environmental groups): Martin Heinrich (D): 52 (51), Heather Wilson (R): 44 (41); Obama 53-44 (52-43).
• NV-Sen (Marist): Shelley Berkley (D): 45 (43), Dean Heller (R-inc): 48 (49); Obama 50-47 (49-47).
• NV-Sen: Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 72, was injured in a car crash on Friday but was discharged from the hospital three hours later with only minor injuries. Fortunately, the same was true for everyone else in the six-car pileup.
• OH-Sen: On Thursday night, Politico's Dave Catanese published a story about how Republican Josh Mandel's stance on abortion had changed. In the original version, Catanese wrote that Mandel "now says he supports an exception to a ban on abortion"—if the health of the mother is threatened—"nine months after he filled out a survey indicating he did not." But then Mandel's campaign provided Catanese with two other surveys where Mandel did indicate he supported an exception in such instances, leading Catanese to largely re-write his piece.
Here's the thing, though: Catanese didn't probe why Mandel failed to check the box saying he supported any exceptions in that original survey from Right-to-Life of Greater Cincinnati (which was the hook for this article in the first place). Was he trying to pull one over on that group? Give Mandel's penchant for outright lies, I could believe it.
• PA-Sen (Rasmussen): Bob Casey (D-inc): 46 (49), Tom Smith (R): 45 (45); Obama 51-46 (51-46).
• PA-Sen: I'm not really sure why the NRSC is bothering to come in and help Tom Smith. I don't say that because Dem Sen. Bob Casey is invulnerable—quite the contrary, we recently moved the race from Likely D to Lean D. Rather, my point is that Smith is very wealthy and has shown no hesitation to self-fund like mad, spending over $17 million of his own money. So what is the NRSC's $500K meant to accomplish? The NRSC swears it's not some kind of head-fake, but obviously, that's exactly what they'd say under any set of circumstances.
Gubernatorial:
• MO-Gov: Republican Dave Spence has contributed another $500K to his own campaign against Dem Gov. Jay Nixon, bringing his total outlay to $5 million.
• NH-Gov (New England College): Maggie Hassan (D): 45, Ovide Lamontagne (R): 45. Obama 49-46.
• WA-Gov: If you're ever looking for a definition for "irony," this might fit the bill: The Seattle Times just fact-checked the ad that that the Seattle Times is running as an independent expenditure on GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna's behalf and found it "half true." (They take particular issue with a claim that the state's K-12 "failure rate" is 41.7 percent.) Adjusting my tinfoil hat, though, I've got to wonder if Times corporate told the Times newsroom to savage the ad, in order to help rebuild the illusion of an objectivity firewall existing between the two, to combat the ongoing PR disaster this weird IE campaign has engendered. (David Jarman)
House:
• CA-30: SurveyUSA has a new poll in the Shberman race (or, as I prefer to call it, "the giant whirlpool for millions of dollars that could be spent on non-Safe D races" race) on behalf of KABC; like everyone else, they give Brad Sherman the edge in the San Fernando Valley Dem-on-Dem battle. They find Sherman leading Howard Berman 44-33, little changed from a 45-32 Sherman lead a month ago. Sherman's faves (37/19) beat Berman's (30/22), and interestingly, Sherman still comes close on the "who is more even-tempered?" question (losing only 27-23). Barack Obama leads 57-35 at the top of the ticket (in 2008, this district went 66-31). (David Jarman)
• CA-36: GOP Rep. Mary Bono Mack definitely seems to have some serious problems understanding the minority communities in her district. Get a load of this:
In a bit of revisionist history, Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack is blaming Democrats for dragging Coachella Valley tribes into the mudfest that is the race for the 36th Congressional District.
"It's very unfortunate that the tribes have been caught up in politics," the Republican incumbent said to a KESQ television reporter before lunch with the Beaumont Rotary Club Thursday. "They were sort of pushed by the Democrats."
She seems to be hoping we'll all forget it was her campaign that first launched attacks at Democratic challenger Raul Ruiz a few weeks ago.
So is Bono Mack saying that the local tribes are incapable of thinking for themselves? That they simply roll over and do as they're asked whenever the Democrats come 'round making demands? It sure sounds that way to me—and that's some pretty outrageously condescending crap. In case you've missed it, by the way, two Indian groups—which very rarely insert themselves into the political process—have denounced her attacks on Ruiz, whom she's accused of being "radical" and "anti-American."
This comes after an email Bono Mack sent some years ago resurfaced, in which she laughed about a radio host's description of the heavily Latino city of Coachella as a "third-world toilet." And just the other day, she declared that she would "try my hardest to speak to Latino voters" (because it's such a difficult thing to do?)—but only after the election. You really get the sense that Bono Mack just doesn't know how to connect to people who aren't like her.
• CT-05, IA-04: House Majority PAC just announced two new big buys. One is in CT-05, where they're spending $500K to attack Republican Andrew Roraback as a tax raiser, the first time they've gotten involved in the race. The other is for $170K in IA-04 (a large amount for that district, going after GOP Rep. Steve King, a seat where they've already spent a considerable sum.
• FL-02: Florida's 2nd continues to surprise, as the DCCC pours on another $250K for the final two weeks. They're attacking GOP Rep. Steve Southerland over an infamous remark he once made, claiming that his $174,000 salary as a member of Congress is "not so much."
• FL-18: GOP Rep. Allen West has hit a new low: In a new ad, he claims that Patrick Murphy committed a "drunken assault against a police officer." In the 2003 incident at issue (when Murphy was 19), he didn't assault anyone—he was arrested for disorderly intoxication and possessing a fake driver's license, and both charges were later dropped. (West is trying to claim that Murphy cursing at a police officer constitutes a "verbal assault.")
Murphy's campaign is incensed, saying they are "considering all legal options." Because TV stations are obligated to run any candidate's ads (even if blatantly false), the only possible legal target for defamation here would be West himself—and going after him in the courts is a potentially risky move. But if West is seriously worried about losing a defamation suit at some point in the future, he might just pull the ad.
• IA-01: This race in eastern Iowa had pretty much fallen by the wayside over the last month or so, with the NRCC pulling out. But it may still be competitive, though, according to an internal poll from GOP candidate Ben Lange, via Victory Enterprises. The survey has Lange (who came close to winning in 2010 in a surprise) leading Dem incumbent Bruce Braley 47-45. Now, I suspect that if anybody else had polling results even remotely similar to this, both national committees would be pounding this race, but it's an indicator that this race shouldn't be toted up in the Dem column just yet. (David Jarman)
• IL-08: So how much do you think Joe Walsh would be losing by, if he hadn't been propped up by millions of spending from outside GOP groups (mostly the mysterious Now or Never PAC)? A Chicago Tribune/WGN poll (taken after Walsh's recent foot-in-mouth comments on abortion) gives Dem Tammy Duckworth a 50-40 lead, including a 48-37 lead among indies and 54-34 lead among women. As with many polls of Chicago suburban districts, though, there's a lot of falloff at the presidential level; this was a 62 percent Obama district in 2008, but now the top of the ticket is 52-41 for Obama. (David Jarman)
• KY-06, NC-07, PA-12: There are new GOP internals of three races with Dem incumbents—races where, despite dealing with solid-red districts, the Dems have seemed to have a slight upper hand. Now ordinarily we recommend taking GOP internal polling with a grain of salt, but here we aren't talking about a POS or Tarrance or one of the other establishment types who often acquit themselves well ... these are polls for Dick Morris's Citizens United organization, by Wenzel Strategies, a pollster who stunk up the joint in 2010 and who continue to put up weird numbers elsewhere. (For instance, they're the only pollster who continues to find Todd Akin not just coming closer than high-single-digits but actually leading in MO-Sen.) For the sake of completeness, though, they've got Andy Barr leading Rep. Ben Chandler 45-41 in KY-06, David Rouzer leading Rep. Mike McIntyre 45-39 in NC-07, and Keith Rothfus leading Rep. Mark Critz 44-39 in PA-12. (David Jarman)
• OH-16: This seems like an "I'm not dead yet" poll from GOP Rep. Jim Renacci, whose recent decision to stop broadcast ads for the last weeks of the campaign got spun in a lot of quarters as him throwing in the towel and apparently left him with the need to push back. In fact, it's quite a bit better than "not dead," as his internal (from OnMessage) gives him a fairly decisive lead in the member-on-member battle against Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton, 51-41. It's still not the kind of numbers that would suggest he's drawing down his ads since he feels the race is locked down, leaving a big question mark hanging over that decision—but, if nothing else, it does in fact confirm that he is still alive. (David Jarman)
• RI-01: A series of DCCC polls last month seemed to indicate that Dem incumbent David Cicilline had taken control of this once-shaky race against GOPer Brendan Doherty. The NRCC must be seeing something that it likes, though, because it just returned to this race, with a $280K buy. The DCCC countered quickly with its own $310K buy, so they might be seeing it too, or just fighting fire with fire. (David Jarman)
• SD-AL: Do you trust me? I really hope you do, because I want you to watch the linked web video from beginning to end. Hell, I'm even breaking my "no web videos" rule here, but I promise you the payoff is worth it. The first 1:40 or so is eye-rollingly boring (and you'll be like, "This is what they're attacking him for? They make him sound so qualified!"), but at about 1:45, it becomes stone cold awesome. But do not skip ahead! You just need to watch the whole thing. Seriously. Do it.
• WA-01: Here's an important data point from this race (though you'd already know it if you've seen our pre-general fundraising report wrapup): Suzan DelBene has just self-funded $500K (or more precisely, $250K in direct self-funding and $250K from a personal loan). Although she self-funded several million to get through the primary in this Dem-leaning district, the fact that she's cracking her checkbook open indicates that she doesn't feel the race against GOPer John Koster is fully nailed-down yet. (David Jarman)
Other Races:
• KY-St. Sen: Hah, so this is actually happening. Dem Gov. Steve Beshear will reportedly tap Republican state Senate President David Williams for a judicial post—a remarkable turn of events seeing as Beshear absolutely humiliated Williams in last year's gubernatorial race. Beshear has regularly appointed Republican senators to various state jobs, in an effort to open up senate seats for special elections to give Democrats a chance to retake the chamber, and this move had been rumored for some time. But it's even more surprising seeing as Williams had long complained about these tactics by Beshear. Dems are still in a pretty deep 23-15 hole in the Senate, and half the body's seats are up this November. Still, you never know what kind of surprises we may see.
Grab Bag:
• Colorado: PPP's latest Colorado poll (which has Obama leading 51-47, up from 50-47 a week ago) still finds the state's marijuana legalization amendment passing, 53-43. Dems also continue to lead the generic legislative ballot, 48-42.
• DCCC, NRCC: In pre-general reports covering the period of Oct. 1-17, the DCCC outraised the NRCC $9.5 million to $7.4 mil. However, Republicans have more cash on hand: $11 mil versus $10.1 mil.
• Fundraising: Pre-general reports detailing all fundraising from Oct. 1-17 were due at the FEC on Thursday night, and once again, we've compiled them all in one place, for all 94 House races we've given a competitive rating to. Click through to see how much everyone's been raising and spending, and who has more cash-on-hand for the final days of the campaign.